From this period, till the formation of the second Rockingham Administration, when he was appointed President of the Council, his usefulness to his country was confined to such services as he was able to render her as a private peer in Parliament, as a staunch and consistent friend of freedom, and as a luminous propounder of the laws and constitution of England. His new tenure of office lasted only from the month of March, 1782, till April, 1783, when the formation of the unnatural "Coalition Ministry" by Fox and Lord North, drove him again into private life. Once more only the eminent lawyer and patriot was called upon to serve his country. On the 1st of December, 1784, early in the days of the first and liberal administration of the younger William Pitt, Lord Camden was prevailed upon to lend a helping hand to the government of the son of his old friend and schoolfellow, by returning to his former post of President of the Council; thus affording an interesting precedent of a veteran statesman of seventy serving under the banner of a young Prime Minister of five-and-twenty. Here, too, let us mention that, on the 13th of May, 1786, he was advanced in the peerage to be Viscount Bayham, of Bayham Abbey, in the county of Kent, and Earl Camden; and, lastly, notwithstanding his increasing age, he continued to hold the Presidency of the Council till his death, extending over a period of ten years. With the single exception of his having been at one period of his life a sufferer from the gout, Lord Camden, after a long enjoyment of continuous good health, appears to have glided into the vale of years, contented, cheerful, and with all his faculties unimpaired. Though never addicted to excess, there had been a time when his habits, harmonizing with the geniality of his disposition, had not only inclined him to be convivial, but when, as regarded the delicacies of the table, he is said to have displayed a tendency to epicurism. With the increase of years, however, and probably with the fear of gout before his eyes, he seems to have made strict abstinence the rule of his life. His replies, indeed, to the hospitable invitations of his friend, the Duke of Grafton, to visit him at Euston or Wakefield Lodge, are tantamount to so many protests against drinking heating wines, and eating highly-seasoned dishes. To the Duke, for instance, he writes in the year 1775: "I am, thank God, remarkably well, but your grace must not seduce me into my former intemperance; a plain dish, and a draught of porter, which last is indispensable, are the very extent of my luxury. I have suffered a good deal, and have studied stomach disorders to such purpose, that I think I am able to teach your grace, who are yet young, how to arrive at a strong and healthy old age, which I hope will be your lot, for the sake of the public as well as of your friends." Lord 1 1 Lord Campbell's 'Lives of the Chancellors,' vol. v. p. 299. Camden, as we have seen, had happily realized for himself the blessing which he desired to confer on his noble friend. Only a few weeks before his death he writes to the Duke of Grafton: "I am more restored than I ever expected to be, and, if I can combat this winter, perhaps may recover as much strength as to pass the remainder of my days with cheerfulness but I do not believe it possible ever for me to return to business, and I think your grace will never see me again at the head of the Council Board. It is high time for me to become a private man and retire." 1 Thus serenely succumbing to the inexorable infirmities of old age, Lord Camden, on the 13th of April, 1794, tranquilly breathed his last at his residence in Hill Street, Berkeley Square, in the eightyfirst year of his age. His remains were interred in the vault of his family, in the parish church of Seal, in Kent. Lord Camden, by his private no less than by his public virtues, has bequeathed an honourable name and shining example to posterity. "He never," in the words of Earl Stanhope, " bartered his principles for place; he never plotted against his colleagues; he never betrayed, nor yet ever fawned upon his sovereign. Such things, far from tainting his conduct, did not even sully his thoughts. On the contrary, while, among his own contemporaries, some displayed 1 Lord Campbell's 'Lives of the Chancellors,' vol. v. p. 351. more vigour in the fierce contentions of party, none perhaps evinced more honourable steadiness in those friendships and principles for the sake of which alone party is desirable; for the sake of which alone party can be justified. His descendants may well be proud not merely of his talents, but of his virtues. And his country will not willingly let die' the honoured remembrance of an orator so accomplished, a judge so firm a friend to liberty, a statesman so far-sighted and pure-minded." 1 Park, it should be here incidentally mentioned, has included Lord Camden in his Continuation of Walpole's Catalogue of Royal and Noble Authors,' 2 but on no weightier grounds apparently than his having been the reputed writer of a couple of forgotten Law Treatises, the authorship of at least one of which seems to be very doubtful. 1 Earl Stanhope's 'Hist. of England,' vol. v. p. 315. p. 358. JACOB BRYANT. "UNUM liceat memorare hodie superstitem, sed provectum annis, et valetudine infirmâ, lumen sæculi, famæque certum posteræ, virum perenni virtutis ingeniique memoriâ dignissimum, JACOBUM BRYANT, qui inter gravia et recondita scientiarum et historia principia, et in Christi fide promovendâ versatissimus, Musis tamen omnibus vacans, Romani carminis vestigia domi et in hospitio tenet, colitque non ut advena, sed ut civis Romanus in ætate Augusti." Such is the testimony borne by one accomplished Etonian to the genius of another; such the tribute paid by a devoted son to the merits of a father's friend!1 Jacob Bryant, one of the most learned scholars whom it has been the fortune of Eton to produce, was the son of an officer in the Civil Service of the Customs at Plymouth, in which town the future mythologist and philological writer was born in the 1 Judge Hardinge, ' De Vitâ Nicolai Hardinge;' N. Hardinge's 'Poems,' p. iv. |